Few skills vs lots of skills

Dodsferd

How do you like your class design? Having 30 skills with different cooldowns as a DPS or support you have to mash/macro in order to keep going or having a few and well designed skills?

The tipical example would be what you get in a MOBA, that's 4~6 skills to get the job done and focus on other aspects, skills which can be used for both ATK/DEF.

I'm enjoying playing in a system like Neverwinter's with few skills, or even MOBAs and having more fun than mashing 40 keys 

AlBQuirky

For me, skills are all about variety and the chance to use them.

10,000 ways to kill is boring as all get-out. Give me interaction skills, like a persuasion skill or intimidation and give me places to use them. I don't need sword stab 1, 2, 3, 4, ...25. 1 sword stab skill that grows with me as I use it is fine.

Situational Combat skills suck, in my opinion. If you have them on your hotbar, they take up space better used by another skill. If you do NOT have them on your hotbar, the one in a million chance to chance to use it is gone, when it finally happens.

zwei2

I also do like Neverwinter's few skills gameplay. A few crucial active skills, and an associate of passive skills (mostly from feats). It makes the game look sleeker and enticing to play.

 

I still have nightmares of 7 skill bars from Vanguard... also fun though.

Loktofeit

Depends on what they do and how combat works. I enjoyed the ways skills were done in GW2 and in LOTRO. One was a handful and the other was a gazillion. Both worked well for their respective games. 

Quizzical

I prefer few enough skills available simultaneously that I can play the game on a gamepad, because I use a mouse too much as it is.

Deddmeat

I liked AO's .. You had a good selection of skills and you chose what to use, you had your class skills and that maybe could have used a bit of polish

Sevenstar61

I like variety. And I don't like to be limited. I liked the way EQ2 made it and I like SWTOR's skills.

 

Rydeson

Originally posted by ReallyNow10

For combat, I say fewer is better.  You don't want the UI to start to look like the Head-up-display of a jet fighter plane.

For non-combat skills, I say generalized skills (which is probably fewer) is better.  You don't need swordsmiths, axesmiths,spearsmiths, and armorsmiths.  Just blacksmith will do.  Maybe can divide between weapons and armor, but that's be about it.

     Agreed.. I never did like those addon's that many used that turned their UI into the cockpit of a NASA shuttle..  I'm ok what classes can learn different skills that are either "class" based or general.. and it's up to the player to load a select few into their hotkeys..  Similar to what EQ1 and WoW did..  Same with crafting, it should be restrictive like what WoW did.. However, I have no issues with players learning "basics" in other crafting trades..

Adamantine

Well, 30 skills, for me, is more like bottom requirement for an interesting class.

I would like:

- Various basic attacks, each with their individual pros and cons, on various cooldowns etc

- Lots of non-attacks, such as buffs, heal, dispel magic, cure poison, reflect spell, shield/guard, ...

- Lots of secondary effects, like area of effect attacks, attacks that might stun the opponent momentarily, attacks that actually heal an appointed ally from their damage, attacks that give you a chance of a momentarial immunity, ...

- Attacks that work best under certain circumstances, like an attack that does devastating damage if you are low on health, or attacks that actually give you selfbuffs or even groupbuffs

- Various types of attacks - say some opponents are immune or even healed by some attacks, or can reflect them, etc

- Various attacks that only open under certain circumstances - like a critical hit, a successful block of an enemy attack, successfull accumulation of special action points, ...

- Ressource management - you cant just spam attacks, you have to think about which to use next, some attacks might actually regenerate your ressources but there can only be one such proc active at any time, so if you're too early you'll overwrite the previous regen, some attacks might use special ressources you have to buy or farm and that you can run out of, ...

- etc etc etc

 

Kyleran

More is better for me, I found the skill limitations of ESO frustrating at times, as there was the "perfect" skill for the situation, but I didn't have it queued up on my hotbars or something.

 

Inf666

I want the game to have a high amount of skills but to allow only a few skills into your skill bar (maximum of 5 skills).

I am a fan of games where you have to manually aim, dodge, block and generally move a lot. This game style is not compatible with having a huge amount of skills in your skill bar.

Dexter2010

I like tons of spells (without redundancies) to do lots, with few for combat. Having only 8 at a time in GW1 sucked.

Jemcrystal

Games are to simple and boring.  Skills get dumbed down with each mmo release.  I'm pro a lot of skills and a lot of modable hotbars / UI.  But not if "Sword Slash" and "Stone Sword" do almost the same exact thing.  What's the point in that?  I want large variety and little to no rules or restrictions.  I hate combos - they force me to do some devs' pattern.  Fuck that.  If I wanted that I'd go sew a quilt.  I want to come up with the pattern on my own.  Something  only I could think up.  I'd like a game where crafting / social / exploration skills enhanced combat skills.  Like craft 20 chest armor pieces and your strength goes up for your left / right (you choose which) sword hand .

Cleffy

I like a complex branching activated skill system. I only like 5 skills at a time, but the selection dynamically changes. Like you use an attack, and the skill bar changes to skills used after that attack. Or if I am targeting a certain class, a different skill bar is used.

For total skills I like few classes with a lot of variety in order to build in certain directions.

Yohanu

My take on it: Have plenty of skills, but remove cooldowns from the vast majority of them, and instead let a resource determine how fast you can cast them (eg mana, more regen = more attacks before you run out)

Jemcrystal

Originally posted by Yohanu
My take on it: Have plenty of skills, but remove cooldowns from the vast majority of them, and instead let a resource determine how fast you can cast them (eg mana, more regen = more attacks before you run out)

I agree with this.  Even wish I'd come up with it.  Spell timers suck.  There is nothing more frustrating as a healer who looses the party because the timer was ticking while everyone was dying.  Or choosing dark wizard so you can blast shit to kingdom come but end up looking weak because the tank is killing faster than your timer allows you to.  What is the good of all that MP if you never get to use it?   Plus mana and regen are open doors to the crafting world and an advantage for us who want to invest more time than money in an mmo.

Aeonblades

Originally posted by Yohanu
My take on it: Have plenty of skills, but remove cooldowns from the vast majority of them, and instead let a resource determine how fast you can cast them (eg mana, more regen = more attacks before you run out)

Pretty much. A game needs a healthy selection of skills, without it the game play risks becoming shallow and not as deep as it could be (IE GW2, ESO, etc.).

Aeander

You're misplacing the issue entirely.

 

It's not the number of skills on a skill bar that is the issue but rather the number of options that is important in giving a game depth and complexity. 

 

I've always stood by this: Guild Wars 1 had the deepest class system of any MMO to date. Yes, skill bars were limited to 8 skills. That was part of the challenge. Thanks to a free form system of hundreds of available, interesting skills, it involved active decision making, knowledge, and creativity that is fundamentally lacking from both games with massive skill bars and more shallow cousins of the small-bar system GW1 carried.

 

Guild Wars 2 and other current small-bar MMOs fail to be deep because they don't pack enough options, let alone interesting, meaningful options to capture the merits of the system they aspire to. Basically, Guild Wars 2's failing is this - skill bars are small and restricted, just like they were in its predecessor, but the game lacks a plethora of specialized, interesting options with which to fill that bar. 

Adamantine

Oh, actually I like cooldowns a lot. They are one of the prime ways to make you think before activating an ability. Do I really want to use this special attack on this enemy, and if yes, when exactly ?

And one of the ideas I have for my own homemade rulesystem is cooldowns with a random component. The idea is to have a couple standard attacks and each has a random component to its cooldown so you can never end up with something like "press A, press B, press C, repeat", as you can do in far too many games.

 

Originally posted by zwei2

I also do like Neverwinter's few skills gameplay. A few crucial active skills, and an associate of passive skills (mostly from feats). It makes the game look sleeker and enticing to play.

 

I still have nightmares of 7 skill bars from Vanguard... also fun though.

I loved how in Vanguard, even after playing a class for MONTHS, I still would find different ways to play that class.

 

Aeander

Originally posted by Adamantine
Oh, actually I like cooldowns a lot. They are one of the prime ways to make you think before activating an ability. Do I really want to use this special attack on this enemy, and if yes, when exactly ?

And one of the ideas I have for my own homemade rulesystem is cooldowns with a random component. The idea is to have a couple standard attacks and each has a random component to its cooldown so you can never end up with something like "press A, press B, press C, repeat", as you can do in far too many games.

 

Cooldowns are, indeed, better than mana for all intents and purposes.

 

Mana systems tend to result in spamming of certain attacks over others, which leads to boring gameplay. Cooldowns ensure that all skills will be used, but that poor use of these will still be punished.

olepi

I like to play utility type jack-of-all-trades characters, where you have a lot of skills and the correct pick of the correct skill at the correct time is part of the fun of the game.

Many of today's MMO's are "action" type games, where there are few choices and the fun of the game is in the twitch of it, not the strategy. Unfortunately, the advent of console MMO's means a lot more of this type, since there are few buttons on the controller.

Moar61

I like how ESO works with few skills and magicka/stamina management. I'm not a fan of tons of skills clogging up the UI

Gravarg

i like the idea of having less skills, but I always seem to play the most complicated or active classes.  In WoW, I love Brewmaster tanking, you're very active, and you use like 8 buttons regularly, and about 5 others fairly frequently.  In FFXIV, I like Monk, you're always moving and pressing several buttons.  In ESO, I like my Nightblade Assassin, even if he's weak, he's the most active.

TegidVeol

I actually dislike the games nowadays with their "endless options, play what you want, when you want" method.

I do not want to play an Assassin that can branch of to a ranger or Paladin. I want to excel at one class and be the best in that one. I loved to do this in WoW and Aion for example. Yes it was somewhat "epeen" but I really think that there still is a big market for that.

This includes that the one class I play has lots of skills. I like playing Piano on my keyboard and optimizing my hotkeys to give myself the .200 second advantage to the mouse clickers. 

And what seems to be forgotten all the time here is this:

It's not only a question of more or less combat skills on the hotbar... I want skills that do "stuff". I want skills like:

Eye of Killrogg - summons an eye to control for a period of time

Eye of the Beast - controls your hunters pets

underwater breathing / detect invisible - because why the hell not?!

I really miss such skills in the games of today.

 

 

AlBQuirky

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Originally posted by olepi
I like to play utility type jack-of-all-trades characters, where you have a lot of skills and the correct pick of the correct skill at the correct time is part of the fun of the game.

---

While I understand your point, I am totally the opposite. What you enjoy is why I disliked playing Wizards and Clerics in old AD&D games. I hate knowing I have the appropriate skill for my character, but because I did not "plan" for it, it is unavailable. "uhhh... I used to know how to swing my sword in an arc and hit multiple targets, but for some reason... not this time." That just makes no sense to me. I would rather "react to the situation" than "try to guess the future."

RTS games, now there I enjoy planing and strategy. RPGs, not so much.

Different strokes

andre369

GW1 hands down, best skill system ever. So many builds to choose from. Later years ofc it was broken. But for the time when it was "popular"  you would always see new builds and it would change from month to month. 

Hope we can get a true successor one day, be it from ANET or not.